Nice “Hearts & Minds” Campaign
Obama doesn’t have to worry about sacrificing principles, he doesn’t have any. CNN reports Obama shifts on oil drilling?
ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) – Barack Obama said Friday that he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.
“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama told The Palm Beach Post early into a two-day swing through Florida.
“If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage – I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done,” Obama said.
He did it in Florida in an interview with a Florida newspaper. He obviously doesn’t want to even be competitive in the state. The state of Florida opposes coastal drilling, both parties and the entire political spectrum. He would have been better off embracing Castro or telling Israel to drop dead, because those positions only torque off certain constituencies, where as drilling is anathema to the entire state.
Following on the heels of his FISA vote you have to wonder if there is anything he won’t give away for a “compromise”. I would say that assuming he will protect a woman’s right to choose is a pretty iffy proposition at this point. You have to wonder if Al Gore is regretting his endorsement.
For the record, no law is normally a better idea than a bad law.
12 comments
So you just discovered that Obama is a politician? Sheesh!
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
I agree that what he said was unfortunate, but for different reasons. Obama said what he said in such a way as to give the jackals in the press another opportunity to emphasize their chosen narrative that Obama is changeable of mind.
But if you closely read what he actually said yesterday, he hasn’t really done anything more than compliment his fellow senators, the gang of 10 idiots, on their attempt to work out a compromise. He didn’t endorse the specific compromise, much less did he say he favors drilling off the Florida coast. Moreover, today he has emphasized that.
Even CNN has his words right:
But he should have known the MSM was lying in wait, hungering to sink their teeth into his campaign balloon. They’ve successfully knocked him off-message, misrepresented his views, and given huggy bear another boost.
As an example, just look how that moron, Amy (“Obama’s Too Skinny to Win”) misrepresents what he said on Saturday.
First, she mischaracterizes what he said with loose paraphrasing: “Obama said on Saturday he would support an expansion of offshore drilling as part of a broader bipartisan energy bill, a more flexible approach than the Democratic presidential contender has previously demonstrated.”
Only later does she quote his actual words, which are at odds with her characterization:
Badtux, I’ve been calling him a Chicago machine politician from the get go. I have never bought into the “change”, and he lost me the first time he had something nice to say about Reagan – a man that cost me and lot of others a hell of a lot of money and benefits we had supposedly been accruing at below market wages.
John, you can’t compromise with the Republicans in Congress. There is no give and take with them, only take, and anyone who doesn’t understand that is too stupid to function in my best interests. Obama with sell out anyone and anything to make a deal and the Republicans know it. Bipartisanship = Surrender – It really is that simple.
I am reminded of an evening long ago when my father and his friends were discussing John Kennedy. It was a month or two before the assassination, which as it happens rendered the discussion moot.
At the time, they were all quite disgusted that Kennedy that day had agreed to sign a very bad bill that included an environmentally destructive dam in Colorado which he had once strongly opposed. Kennedy did it just to get one more vote in the Senate for his ill-conceived, provocative scheme to arm our NATO ally Germans with missile-mounted nuclear weapons — putting the nukes, time wise, as good as next door to Moscow.
When they are not in power, as we have seen so clearly the last seven years, Democrats act like road kill for the Republican juggernaut. When Democrats are in power, they can’t agree among themselves on anything and so give away the company store.
A few weeks ago when Obama first started slithering to the Right, a prominent Obama supporter had an op-ed, in the Times I think, bemoaning how he seems to have switched his campaign style from being a no-holds-barred advocate of generally liberal causes to a style more closely resembling how presidents in recent times usually present themselves while governing — trying to please as many people as possible with milquetoast compromise solutions that often make the problems worse.
His point wasn’t that compromise isn’t sometimes necessary in governing the nation. It was that if Obama continues down this path as a political candidate, he will lose the election. And if he doesn’t lose, his pre-election “compromising” will in any event have crippled his ability to govern effectively.
1-20-09 is looking more and more like just more of the same.
Hate the thought, but maybe Nader was right.
When do they realize that they aren’t being elected to compromise with the idiots who have trashed the country, but to correct the mistakes.
First reset to 1-19-2001 and then move forward.
When you are doing a rehab, which is what is necessary with the government:
1. Fumigate
2. Haul off the trash
3. Fumigate again
4. Clean up and deodorize
5. Repair
6. Clean up before showing it.
You are not compromising with the roaches, cleaning only some rooms, repairing a few things – you are bringing it back to a livable condition.
The people who want the current policies to continue are not voting for Democrats.
Unfortunately, without compromise, not a single piece of legislation could emerge from the Republican-controlled Senate.
The fact that Harry Reid doesn’t take control of the Senate is his problem. He is supposedly a Democrat and the majority leader. The Republicans are allowed to block things because he lets them. There are a number of work arounds, but he won’t use them.
He would rather capitulate than lead. The Republicans stand their ground because they know the Democrats will cave in. It is that simple.
Michael, the GOP’s notion of “compromise” is what Tom Coburn did to the omnibus package a couple of days ago. Without “compromise,” GOP-fashion, a lot of necessary bills… bills proposed by senators from both parties… could have passed by now.
Bryan is right: there is no reason Harry Reid should allow this to go on. The price for Coburn’s blocking majority-supported legislation should be rendered very heavy indeed, but Harry Reid keeps letting Coburn get away with it. We’re not talking about civil liberties issues here, nor about some sort of extremist legislation; we’re talking about ordinary budget matters that should, in almost all cases, be resolved by a majority vote. That’s what majorities are for: the ordinary business of government should not require a supermajority. Reid is allowing the GOP minority to rule even in the most ordinary matters. “Compromise” is precisely what is NOT required here.
Harry Reid seems very timid. He wants to do the right thing but he doesn’t have a lot of backbone of his own, and maybe part of the reason is that the Republican party has an absolute control of the Senate when Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney (in case of ties) are counted.
What Harry Reid has the power to do as head of the nominal majority party, involves mainly committee assignments and scheduling. He can use his scheduling power to delay and obstruct, but it is not possible for him to move any legislation without support from the other party.
There is also a very long history in the Senate of comity. The enemy has, historically, always been the “other body,” as they refer to the House of Representatives–not the people on the other side of the aisle. It certainly seems that the time for that attitude to change is long past, but the entire function of the Senate is to act as a brake, a check-rein. It doesn’t–and never has–turn on a dime.
Reid gets to select members of the conference committee which hammers out the differences between House and Senate bills. After they come out, there are up or down votes.
Reid honors the “holds” of Republican Senators and ignores those of Dems. There was no comity under Bill Frist, who broke one of the longest standing Senate courtesies when he campaigned against Daschle. The Republicans were constantly threatening to use the “nuclear option”.
If the will was there, the way is there. Make the Republicans filibuster. Make it obvious that they are obstructing things. Give the media some visuals for the nightly news. The press releases don’t hack it. Make it a story.